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The contest was triggered by the resignation of Michael Martin, the former Speaker and now Lord Martin of Springburn, who won a majority of more than 10,000 at the 2005 general election.

Mr Bain got 12,231 votes, 8,111 ahead of his nearest rival, the SNP’s David Kerr (4,120). The Conservatives’ Ruth Davidson finished third with 1,075 votes, just ahead of the BNP’s Charlie Baillie (1,013), who lost his deposit.

Mr Murphy claimed the result was a “humiliation” for Mr Cameron, who campaigned in the constituency and whose image dominated Tory election leaflets.

“Today you will see a real shot of confidence in the arm of Labour MPs and members of the party not just in Scotland but across the whole of Great Britain,” he said.

“I think you will see a real turnaround in sentiment, a real sense of confidence, a real sense of belief and a real sense that we can win this fourth election.”

The Prime Minister and his wife, Sarah, campaigned in the constituency and he hailed the win as a “tremendous result”. He added: “This shows that when we fight hard we win.”

In his victory speech just after 2am on Friday morning, Mr Bain said: “The people have had their say. They back Gordon Brown and his efforts to secure our economic recovery. The message for the general election is game on.”

But the Tories said Labour’s campaign literature made little reference to the Prime Minister and third place was a good result in an area where they have no support base.

David Mundell, the Shadow Scottish Secretary said the result has “little significance” for the general election, when voters will be faced with a straight choice between the Tories and Labour.

Both parties agreed the result had put pay to Alex Salmond’s target of increasing the number of SNP MPs from seven to 20 at the general election.

Nicola Sturgeon, Mr Salmond’s deputy, admitted the result was disappointing and the party had lessons to learn from Labour’s “relentlessly negative” campaign.

But she predicted: “The Labour Party will not be able to sustain this type of campaigning as we head into a general election.”